Crains New York - January 21, 2013 - (Page 3)

Architects have expansionist designs After lean stretch, they are gearing up for new business, more competition BY DANIEL GEIGER LOOKING FORWARD TO TECH CAMPUS: Morphosis’ Scott Lee, with a past project for Cornell buck ennis During the long drought for New York City architecture firms, Mark Bearak toiled away on blueprints for a large residential project in Singapore. “It was horrible, repetitive, never-ending work,” Mr. Bearak said, adding that he was also grateful to have it, considering the state of his profession in the years after the financial crisis. Last year, though, Mr. Bearak landed a job at Mesh,a small designer in Brooklyn, and just two months ago he scored a top job at hot firm FXFowle. Today, the 33-year-old talks about a new “sense of confidence” growing in the architecture business—and many agree. In recent months, a raft of projects both public and private, along with a surge in international work, have pushed the city’s top architecture firms to go beyond rebuilding recession-ravaged staff rosters and gear up for new business. More than a dozen major architectural firms in the city expect to boost staff this year by between 10% and 20%, adding a total of hundreds of designers. Among the big projects stoking the hiring engines are the Cornell NYC Tech campus on Roosevelt Island,a pair of huge residential/office projects slated to rise on the rail yards west of Penn Station, and a new $650 million police academy taking shape in College Point, See ARCHITECTS on Page 20 IN THE BOROUGHS MANHATTAN Locals take big gulp over opening of 7-Eleven on Ave. A BY ADRIANNE PASQUARELLI Lower East Siders have found something they fear and loathe even more than banks and Starbucks— 7-Eleven—and they’re not going to take it anymore. The global convenience-store giant, with its garish orange-and-green logo and blinding batteries of fluorescent lights, has already opened four locations in the neighborhood. Another is scheduled to open this spring at Avenue A and East 11th Street. In response, dozens of community activists and residents gathered last week at Father’s Heart Ministries church just up the street to discuss ways to stop the chain before time runs out. “It’s a total invasion of the soul snatchers,” warned Bob Holman, proprietor of the recently closed Bowery Poetry Club, who showed up at the meeting sporting yards of heavy steel chains wrapped around his torso. “It’s the blandification of America.” The world’s largest conven- ‘It’s a total invasion of the soul snatchers’ ience store operator, franchisor and licensor is in the midst of an aggressive expansion in Manhattan. In the past two years, the Dallas-based chain, famous for its Big Gulps and Slurpees, has quadrupled its store count in the borough to 32, from eight previously. Another 20 are planned for this year. Locals charge that 7-Eleven is tearing the fabric of the Lower East Side, saying that the stores stick out like visitors from another planet. Others complain that the chain is taking business away from small grocers, newsstands and bodegas, and they are fighting back with a barrage of boycotts, bumper stickers and marches. Rob Hollander, a neighborhood blogger who put together last week’s meeting and also heads the A-B-C Block Association, said, “7-Eleven did not really have a foothold in Manhattan before the last year.Now they’re everywhere.” But far from hurting local businesses, 7-Eleven responds, many of its more successful franchisees are actually local entrepreneurs, some of SCHOOL TRANSPORT 101: When school-bus drivers went on strike last week, news about the scale and cost of the system shocked many. $1.1B Annual cost of bus use to transport students, or $6,900 per pupil 152K Students using school buses every day, including 54,000 special-needs students 7,700 Yellow school-bus routes in NYC 34 Years since the last school-bus strike 3 Trips allowed per day on student MetroCards, 500,000 of which are handed out per semester Sources: NYC Mayor’s Office, Second Avenue Sagas istockphoto Chain pain on Lower E. Side STATS AND THE CITY ADDICTED TO NUMBERS? GET A DAILY DOSE AT @STATSANDTHECITY See 7-ELEVEN on Page 12 January 21, 2013 | Crain’s New York Business | 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - January 21, 2013

Crains New York - January 21, 2013
In the Boroughs
In the Markets
The Insider
Business People
Corporate Ladder
Opinion
Greg David
Real Estate Deals
Report: Small Business
Classifieds
New York, New York
Source Lunch
Out and About
Snaps

Crains New York - January 21, 2013